


In The Back Of My Car

by Goffy



Series: Bellyache [2]
Category: Cirque du Freak | The Saga of Darren Shan - Darren Shan
Genre: Book 3: Tunnels of Blood (Cirque Du Freak | The Saga of Darren Shan), Gen, Other, Vampaneze (Cirque du Freak | The Saga of Darren Shan)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:33:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27627524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goffy/pseuds/Goffy
Summary: Inspired by Billie Eillish's song "Bellyache", this mini-series with short chapters (each named after a lyric) focuses on Steve Leonard and his transformation into what he became (alongside minor interactions with other characters, no dialogue.) This is written from a psychological perspective and aims to study the character in more depth.
Series: Bellyache [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018588
Kudos: 2





	In The Back Of My Car

It must have been quiet late into the night. 

He awakened when his neck tired of holding his head up against the window, and he realized shortly after becoming fully conscious what a miracle it had been for him to fall asleep in the first place. Even though the car was moving at a steady speed, placing his head against the glass would cause vibrations to travel along his skull, making it bounce and bump uncomfortably. Even so, the journey had been tiring and long, and he was bored so he found himself dozing off in incomplete sleep sequences.

In his hazy, dream-like state he didn’t realize when the highway had ended and where the town had begun. They were still at the outskirts, so the road ahead still stretched for quite some time. There were few homes and more empty land around them. Steve could see the outline of their town up ahead, though to a newcomer’s eyes the mess of homes and infrastructure would not be very obvious on such a dark night. 

Steve felt a sense of relaxation, knowing he’d be home soon and free to sleep as he wished on his cozy, soft bed. He sunk into his seat, turning his head to the right so he could look at the passing emptiness as he dozed off once more. 

That’s when he saw it.

He couldn’t tell what he was looking at. It took him a while to make out the shapes and make sense of what he was seeing; it appeared to be a man….and he seemed to be holding something up beside his chest. What was strange was not only the demeanor of this man and his eerie smile, but the fact that he seemed to be standing still...yet he was following Steve’s eyes. Almost as if he was a sticker on the window.

Steve sat up, pulled out of his sleep and thrusted into a state of awareness. Instinctively, he looked to the driver’s seat, expecting to see his mother, but she was not there. The seat was empty. 

Automatically, Steve's immediate response was to move forward and take a hold of the steering wheel himself, but his body suddenly weighed bricks. He couldn't move or even speak.

Panic bubbled up inside him as he glanced to his window again. The man was still there, albeit he appeared clearer and closer than before. Now, Steve could see what he was holding: a heart, with a clock inside it. 

Steve told himself he was dreaming. This was not real. He pinched himself, he scratched himself, to no avail. In his panic, he looked back and forth between the window and the wheel, worried about who was driving and who that man was- but also, where was he headed? His attention shifted to the road, and Steve realized his town was no longer in sight. Nothing was.   
The road stretched on and on forever till it just...stopped. Steve felt his mouth turn bitter as bile climbed up his throat. He felt sick, claustrophobic, as if the seatbelt was choking him and the car was closing in on itself. 

He glanced again to his right again, and if a tremendous force hadn't been weighing his body down, he would have jumped. The man was much closer now, face pressed against the glass, grinning at Steve. He didn’t say anything, but Steve thought to himself in a manner that seemed unfamiliar. Almost as if he couldn’t recognize his own inner voice.

And there wasn’t only one voice. There were many- all his own but none feeling like they belonged to him. They spoke over each other in rushed, hushed voices, in broken sentences that more often than not were incoherent. There was one voice that spoke louder over the others, and though Steve understood it, he still couldn’t make sense of what it meant.

Whose time was limited? What was coming? What tragedy? The immediate thought to cross Steve’s mind-his own this time- was the suspicion that he had died and was crossing over to some hellish other world. 

For a moment, Steve disassociated from the madness around him, but he was given no time to collect himself. He was yanked back into consciousness when the man reached through the car door without warning and gripped Steve’s left hand. He then used a nail to open the wound the boy had inflicted upon himself in the graveyard. It burned where he touched, but Steve could only watch as the cross he’d carved into his palm was cut again, leaving a crimson trail. 

And then, abruptly, the man moved out of the car and back into the nothingness whence he had come and the weight lifted off Steve. His immediate response was to lurch forward and try to get in control of the vehicle, but he struggled to get into the driver’s seat. The seatbelt was stuck.

Up ahead, there was-

Nothing. The road ended and there was nothing but a pitch black ocean of emptiness right after it. And to make matters worse, another car seemed to be speeding towards him from across the endless pit.   
Steve tried everything, but before he could do anything to change his fate, the oncoming car collided into his-  
and both vehicles plummeted into the deep void.

He woke up with ragged breathing. 

His mother had turned and was looking at him, concerned. Steve ignored her and instead tried to see where he was and what was going on around him.   
The car was parked. They were right outside his house. Everything was quiet. He wiggled his toes to make sure they were there. 

His mother asked him if he was okay. Steve remained mute. He opened the car door and stumbled out, a little too eager to leave the wretched vehicle.

His mind was uncharacteristically silent for quite a while after. When he got upstairs to his room, he noticed the warm, pooling stickiness in his left palm. Quickly, he checked it.

It was bleeding.

It was right then that his mind spoke, for the last time that night, and all it said was “Destiny”.

**Author's Note:**

> symbolism, symbolism, symbolism.  
> i need to stop using it because somewhere along the way, the actual meaning gets buried and lost under heaps and tangles of metaphors. curse my need to cipher everything *shakes fist*
> 
> i dont know if i should reveal what the symbolism was and how it works with steve. i'd like to leave that to the reader's imagination.


End file.
